Donate to the Boost C++ Libraries

According to OpenHub's
Boost page, as of August 2014 there are 14.2 million lines
of code in Boost. Given the high quality of coding needed to
pass Boost's community review process, and the extensive unit
and functional testing required, a cost of US$20/line is not
unreasonable. By that metric, the Boost C++ Libraries would
cost US$284 million to rewrite from scratch in a commercial
organization.

If you want more of the same, please donate generously. We
will use donations to fund Boost infrastructure, help finance
the annual C++ Now conference,
and help fund students to work on Boost code without having to
worry as much about finding the time or money to do so. You
should be aware we may also use donations for any other purpose
the Boost steering committee feels appropriate, and that ten
percent (10%) of your donation after Paypal's fees will go to
Software Freedom
Conservancy. Software Freedom Conservancy is a
not-for-profit organization that helps promote, improve,
develop, and defend Free, Libre, and Open Source Software
(FLOSS) projects.

Why ask for donations for the first time in fifteen
years?

Boost was not generated, for the most part, by any
commercial organization. It is available in the public interest
as one of the purest forms of open source: its license,
the Boost
Software License, is highly permissive and allows
unrestricted commercial use. Most of the code was written,
documented and tested in the spare and family time of some of
the very best C++ engineers in the world, many of whom are also
involved in the ISO C++ standardization process. Many of the
additions to the C++ 11 standard library started life in the
Boost libraries, and so will many of the additions and changes
to the next C++ standard library.

Yet, for its first fifteen years, Boost has never asked for
donations of money from its users. So why begin now?

As Boost grows, more time and resources is being spent on
dealing with the size and complexity of Boost, especially as
libraries are transitioned to make full use of the new language
features in C++ 11/14. If you wish to support those efforts to
bring more Boost libraries into first tier support for the
latest generation of C++, please donate generously.

Why you should donate with a recurring monthly
donation

Boost has participated in Google's
Summer of Code since 2007. This is an annual student open
source programming stipend program lasting three months during
which experienced Boost developers mentor students who work on
improving Boost libraries, usually in all the boring, thankless
stuff none of us like to do. The problem with the three month
duration is that the student is only just getting familiar
enough with the Boost libraries to really ramp up their
productivity and rate of output when the program ends. This
leads to these outcomes:

We don't reap the full rewards of what we should given
the substantial investment in mentoring our developers invest
into students each year.

The student is just getting into the Boost libraries when
they need to return to concentrating on their studies, and
often back to the part time work needed to finance the high
expense of university study nowadays.

Students, when they graduate, get pulled into the
development of proprietary rather than open source software,
or they end up gravitating to one of the many open source
projects much better at running a student-to-developer
pipeline than Boost historically has been.

Whatever the case, Boost is not benefiting as it should from
enthusiastic students with great ideas about where C++ should
go next, and we hope that you can help us change
that.

So, if you or your company or organization has benefited
from the Boost C++ Libraries, or you would like to assist
promising young C++ engineers develop their talents to the
full, please strongly consider making a regular monthly
donation to Boost! Please donate generously. Thank you in
advance!